Fuaim
by Novocain
Summary: ..I don't know how to be me without you. It's barely a whisper, bitterreluctant and torn from Harry's throat so dangerously.. On the easy steps of going a bit mad. On the simple steps of going too far. On screwing the world and how to notcare.


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There is no such thing as silence. Silence implies a lack of sound, but even the silence has a sound, a tone - a screaming voice that scrapes nerves bloody and a quiet resignation that reeks of death.

"I don't know how to be me without you."

It's barely a whisper, bitter/reluctant and torn from Harry's throat so dangerously. Dangerdangerdanger - and no one hears. There is no one within miles. At least, no one alive.

So it's okay - the corpse of Voldemort lies in the mud in front of Harry, and it's okay. It's okay because the wicked man is dead, and Harry killed him, but...no, not okay. Harry's not okay. He stares into sightless red eyes and doesn't shudder.

He stares and tries to think of a time when Voldemort didn't define him, when Harry was just Harry, but it has been so long since he was the Boy Who Lived Under the Stairs (and even then, Voldemort's actions shaped him - like a twisted kind of father/twin, and it's all so fucked up) that he can't recall. Danger all inside - and no one hears.

"The last time I went by Headquarters, I told Hermione that I thought you were in love with me." Harry's words are so silent that they are nearly not there - not alive and reeking of the quiet resignation. "She traced the scar across her cheekbone that your Slicing Hex gave her and told me I'm so stupid that it makes the Wizarding World beyond moronic to have me as their hero." The twenty-four year old yanks his eyes from the corpse's and looks up at the deep blue sky - he doesn't see anything interesting, and he wonders what Voldemort is looking at, exactly. He swallows and remembers: _dead_. His voice cracks a little, but he continues to speak in that hoarse whisper. Strings of syllables are coming that have never come before, and Harry wonders if bleeding the poison out will save him. "You know, I think the war made her bitter."

It's so true that it makes him want to scream, but he has plenty of reasons to wail and cry and break. This is the very smallest pain in comparison, and if he is going to break (which he's not - not not not) then he has better reasons.

He has better reasons to cry than the destruction of his bossy, clever best friend, and the thought itself is such a miniscule reason to break that he gently escorts it to the abyss in his mind and shoves it off the edge. It's not important.

Then again, nothing is important anymore. This is a defeatist thought, though, so Harry shoves it into the abyss as well and continues to stare into the empty blue above him - the natural inverse of the bottomless hole in his head - as if it is the last encroaching thing that will ever matter. He flings his bleeding, dirty arms out and falls into the mud next to Voldemort's dead body.

There is no silence, but his (_soquiet_) words break it anyway. "Then...then she made a sound that wasn't a laugh and told me it was the other way around."

It's barely a whisper, bitter/reluctant and torn from Harry's throat so dangerously. "She was right, I think."

The not-silence stretches on, as vast as the fathomless blue overhead.

"I don't know how to be me without you."

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There is nothing resembling silence in the abandoned library of Malfoy Manor. Raging gusts of wind tear through the window Harry shattered in frustration a few hours earlier, bringing in the rain and soaking the man but not the bespelled books.

In the silence beneath the gale, something is screaming.

Harry doesn't notice the raucous storm. He doesn't notice anything, actually, except the archaic tomes he is devouring. He doesn't even notice that when he stands to search for a grimoire a text mentions, he steps in the broken glass of the window. He paces back and forth over the glass, looking frantically and not hearing the tell-tale crunch underfoot, not feeling the pain of his bare feet being sliced to ribbons.

Blood stains the expensive Persian rug, and he doesn't notice.

He siezes the grimoire in question with a spark in his eyes - it has been two weeks, and all that the world knows is Harry and Voldemort have both disappeared. Harry made his choice that day in a muddy field, and nothing will deter him.

Hermione always did call him a stubborn idiot.

He curls back up in the luxurious armchair next to the window, his eyes racing back and forth over the text before he even sits. He doesn't notice the blood pooling on the fine leather beneath him.

It is hours later, fifteen minutes before sunrise, when he laughs.

(It is not a nice laugh - not a laugh that brings to mind swinging higher and higher on the swingset at the playground, swinging until all you see is your feet walking on the sky. It is a laugh that would terrify children. It is a laugh that would terrify adults. It is a laugh that in the distant future, after a dozen more really good reasons to break finish off what is left of Harry's sanity, will be the last sound thousands of people ever hear.)

He laughs that mad, exultant laugh and jumps out of the armchair, and the blood has seeped into the leather and dried into a dark brown - the rain stopped in the middle of the night, and all is silent (but not, because something is screaming in the silence). His feet land in the glass yet again, and the scabbed-over cuts start bleeding anew as he heedlessly stalks out of the damp, chilled study.

He gently lays _Moste Dark and Anciente Necromantik Rituals_ on the polished surface of the ebony writing desk on his way out.

Harry made his choice that day in a muddy field, and nothing will deter him.

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_.:I don't know how to be me without you:. _

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A/N: The first and last line is from NinjaSquirls's fic Every Time We Say Goodbye, which is an absolutely brilliant Naruto fic. She's absolutely brilliant, full-stop. She's got a fantastic HP fic called Working Girl (on my faves) that you must check out. And then read all of her stories. I command you, my minions. (grins) 

And if you review, tell me whether you like the fic better with or without the library scene. If I get majority, I'll edit it out. My gorgeous and talented friend hpfan23 wasn't sure if it would detract from the rest of the fic; I wrote it after I finished the field scene. Inform me, my lovely reviewers! By the way: mad thanks to hpfan23 for her input and suggestions.

Title translation: the first to correctly guess the language and meaning of the title gets to request a fic - the character/fandom/particular line, whatever. Anonymous reviewers, you need to leave me a way to contact you, please!


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